Until the End
by renrenren3
Summary: After finally achieving his revenge, Ciel has to pay the price of the contract he made with Sebastian. Follows the manga storyline, not the anime.


**Notes:** This is the first part in a longer fic that I have planned, set six or seven years later than the current manga events. The main reason for this is that I find Sebastian creepy enough without him being a pedo as well. If the idea of a demon butler screwing his 12-years-old master doesn't bother you, you can just ignore my time skip. I'm writing this just for fun, so pick whatever amuses you the most.

The air was thick with the smell of smoke and blood.

Ciel stood among the ruins of what only a few hours ago had been a magnificent chapel and surveyed critically the bodies strewn on the floor. There had been a struggle, but not for long. From outside came some screams as the last of the cultists were dealt with.

"Any time now," Ciel thought, and he clenched his hands together on top of his cane to keep them steady. There was a last, high-pitched scream, and then the night was silent.

Ciel closed his eyes. When he reopened them Sebastian was standing a few steps behind him, his shadow flickering in the red glare of the torches.

"What took you so long?" Ciel asked, barely turning his head. From his detached tone he might have been talking about his afternoon tea. Nothing in his voice betrayed the emotion he felt as he asked the final, most important question. "Have you completed the job I gave you?"

Sebastian bowed at the waist. "Yes, young master," he replied. Although his clothes were tattered and smeared with blood, he was wearing his usual grin and moved as if he was unscathed. "It would appear that our guests had summoned some troublesome creatures, but everything has been taken care of."

"Good," Ciel replied. For a minute he stood silent, unsure of what to do or say.

So this was revenge.

He had waited for eight long years for this day to come. Now that he had finally tracked down and destroyed everyone who had a hand in the murder of his parents and his kidnapping, the Earl of Phantomhive felt strangely empty.

There was nothing more to be done, no more orders to be given out.

Sebastian might have been thinking the same thing, because he took out his pocket-watch from his waistcoat and flicked it open.

"Young master, it is time," he said politely but firmly.

Ciel nodded. For eight years Sebastian had been faithfully serving him and obeying his every order, and now his contract had been fulfilled. It was Ciel's time to keep his half of the bargain.

"I have one last order for you," he said, taking some small comfort in the fact that his voice didn't sound as strained as he felt.

Sebastian looked at his master interrogatively but he simply bowed his head as usual and waited, the very picture of a perfect butler.

"Carry me out of here," Ciel said, gesturing with his cane towards the bodies and the rubble that surrounded them. He felt disgust and rage at the thought of what those people had done to him. Not even their death had been enough to calm those feelings. "I don't want to die here like _they_ did."

He was worried that Sebastian might have refused him: after all he was no longer bound by their contract. But it seemed as if the demon was planning to keep his facade up until the very end. With a nod of acquiescence, Sebastian bent slightly and scooped Ciel in his arms as if he was a puppet, then dashed out of the chapel at a speed impossible to match for a human.

Outside, a cool night wind slapped at Ciel's face and rustled the tree leaves, and he could hear a river flowing close by. The young man half-closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on those sounds instead of his mounting discomfort.

Being carried like that was unbecoming and embarrassing, and Ciel had often complained to his butler about it. But tonight it seemed pointless to argue. Not a living soul was here to see them, and at any rate there wasn't a long way to go.

After less than a minute Sebastian stopped and let his former master down on a patch of grass. Ciel looked at his surroundings, taking in a calm river that glinted in the moonlight, willow trees swaying under the breeze, and finally the demon standing in front of him in the form of his butler.

"This will be fine," Ciel said with a small nod.

He wasn't afraid of death, or even pain. He had known ever since their first meeting what would be the price of employing a demon. Even so, he couldn't stifle a sense of nervousness as Sebastian slowly walked up to him with his gloved hand stretched out.

He frowned, willing his heartbeat to slow down. He was the Earl of Phantomhive - the last of his line - and he would not go to his death trembling like a child. He willed himself not to blink as Sebastian raised his hand to his cheek, almost brushing the eye that carried the mark of their contract.

"Then, young master..." his former butler said quietly.

Ciel, already tense, couldn't stop a motion of annoyance. "Didn't I tell you to stop that already?" he snapped, unable to contain himself. "You keep saying young master, young master... I'm not a kid any more!"

He almost immediately wished he could take his words back. Let Sebastian take his soul now, let everything end here. He didn't want this to drag out for more than was strictly necessary.

However Sebastian withdrew his hand and chuckled lightly. "The young master will always be the young master to me," he said, then cocked his head on one side and feigned concern. "Besides, it's not as if you grew much in the past few years. Look, you're still no taller than my shoulder," he added, putting a hand on top of Ciel's head to compare their heights.

The young Earl slapped that hand away brusquely. "That's just because you're impossibly huge," he complained, irritation fighting against nervousness in the pit of his stomach. Typical of Sebastian, wasting time on pointless chatter when there were things to be done. "Hurry up," Ciel added, and he could hear the strain in his own voice. If their brief exchange didn't stop there, he wouldn't be able to hold himself together.

"It would be better if you closed your eyes," Sebastian said, almost apologetically. "My demon form is... rather unbecoming, I am afraid. I do not want that to be the last thing the Earl will see."

Ciel nodded and closed his eyes, not trusting himself to speak any more.

He heard a sigh, then felt the air in front of him move as Sebastian once more closed the distance between them. Something (a hand? or perhaps another sort of limb?) gently brushed his right eyelid, then slid downwards to trace his cheekbone.

When the hand withdrew and placed itself firmly on his shoulder, Ciel numbly thought, "This is it," and braced himself for whatever might come.

However, instead of the flash of pain that he was expecting, he felt something soft pressing against his mouth. Ciel's eyes fluttered open, hesitatingly and unsure at first, then widened in surprise as he took in the situation.

Sebastian was kissing him. He was still in a human form, his face shadowed by his hair, the eyes half closed. Ciel couldn't have guessed what his expression was.

As Ciel stood stock-still, his brain desperately trying to make sense of an unexpected and absurd situation, Sebastian's tongue parted his lips and delved into his mouth. The feeling, hot and wet and like nothing he might have expected, made Ciel moan softly. That was enough to jerk him back to reality.

He struggled to break free of Sebastian's grip, but for all of his efforts he could have been trying to push back a rock. The taller man simply slid one hand down Ciel's spine so that it rested against the small of his back, then leaned forward to deepen the kiss.

Ciel squirmed uncomfortably, balling his fists against Sebastian's chest. His heartbeat had become so loud that all other sounds had been muted, drowned out by the rush of blood in his ears.

Dimly, he thought that maybe this was just a way for Sebastian to rip out the soul for his body, but he knew that couldn't be the truth. Sebastian's mouth felt eager, hungry even, but there was also something else. A sense of urgency that Ciel had rarely seen before in his butler.

He was about to stop his feeble struggling and give in to the kiss when Sebastian unexpectedly pulled himself back and released his grip. Ciel stumbled backwards, raising the back of his hand to his mouth.

"Just what was that?" he asked. He was shocked at how out-of-breath his own voice sounded.

Sebastian, on the other hand, sounded infuriatingly calm as he replied. "I deeply apologize, young master," he said, and from his tone at least Ciel could guess that he was smiling. "It would seem that I cannot be satisfied with merely taking your soul."

Ciel stared back at him blankly. "What do you mean? What else would you want?" His mind raced as he tried to understand a demon's trail of thoughts. "You told me already that you don't care for riches or titles..."

"That is correct," Sebastian nodded.

"So, what on Earth...?"

Sebastian sighed, as if they were back at the Manor and he was tutoring the Earl in a particularly difficult subject.

"What I want from you, young master, is... everything," he said. His eyes were mesmerizing. Ciel found himself unable to tear his gaze away. "Your soul, your mind and your body, give them to me."

Ciel's breathing had almost returned to normal, though his eyes were still wide open. Emotions fought for control inside him. He clenched his fists together, willed his back to stand straight and glared back at Sebastian.

"If you had other requests, you should have made them when we sealed the contract," he pointed out, sternly.

Sebastian moved his head and the moonlight glinted off his grinning face. "I swore on the mark of our contract that I would be with you until the end," the demon said, carefully peeling off a glove to reveal the pentacle on the back of his hand. "Therefore I will not let go of you just yet."

Now Ciel could recognize the expression hidden behind that perpetual smile - desire, pure and simple. Such a common human expression and at the same time so unexpected on a demon. He wondered, briefly, how many times Sebastian had looked at him with those eyes and how many times he had failed to notice it.

But then again, how could he have expected anything like it? It wasn't in the nature of men to feel attraction towards other men (or at least, Ciel corrected itself, it wasn't in the nature of moral men) and though it might have been different for demons Sebastian had never seemed the kind who gave in to emotions.

The taste of the kiss still lingered on Ciel's lips.


End file.
